In view of the conditions which
prevailed in the war department and in the Union army, it is not surprising that desertion
was a common fault. Even so the actual extent of it, as shown in the official reports,
comes as a distinct shock. Though the determination of the fully number is a bit
complicated, the total would seem to have been well over 200,000. From New York there were
44,913 deserters according to the records; from Pennsylvania, 24,050; from Ohio, 18,354.
The daily hardships of war, deficiency in arms, forced marches (which sometimes made
straggling a necessity for less vigorous men), thirst, suffocating heat, disease, delay in
pay,~ solicitude for family, impatience at the monotony and futility of inactive
service, and (though this was not the leading cause) panic on the eve of battle - these
were some of the conditioning factors that produced desertion. Many men absented
themselves merely through unfamiliarity with military discipline or through the feeling
that they should be "restrained by no other legal requirements than those of the
civil law governing a free people"; and such was the general attitude that desertion
was often regarded "more as a refusal . . - to ratify a contract than as the
commission of a grave crime."
The sense of war weariness, the lack of
confidence in commanders, and the discouragement of defeat tended to lower the morale of
the Union army and to increase desertion. General Hooker estimated in 1863 that 85,000
officers and men had deserted from the Army of the Potomac, while it was stated in
December of 1862 that no less than 180,000 of the soldiers listed on the Union muster
rolls were absent, with or without leave. Abuse of sick leave or of the furlough privilege
was one of the chief means of desertion. Other methods were: slipping to the rear during a
battle, inviting capture by the enemy (a method by which honorable service could be
claimed), straggling, taking French leave when on picket duty, pretending to be engaged in
repairing a telegraph line, et cetera. Some of the deserters went over to the enemy not as
captives but as soldiers; others lived in a wild state on the frontier; some turned outlaw
or went to Canada; some boldly appeared at home; in some cases deserter gangs, as in
western Pennsylvania, formed bandit groups.
To suppress desertion the extreme penalty of
death was at times applied, especially after 1863; but this meant no more than the
selection of a few men as public examples out of many thousands equally guilty. The
commoner method was to make public appeals to deserters, promising pardon in case of
voluntary return with dire threats to those who failed to return. That desertion did not
prevent a man posing after the war as an honorable soldier is evident by a study of
pension records. The laws required honorable discharge as a requisite for a pension; but
in the case of those charged with desertion Congress passed numerous private and special
acts "correcting" the military record.

Confederate Army

Desertion at the South, though less
extensive than in the North, was a factor of large significance; and a study of the causes
that produced it goes far toward revealing the conditions which made the war intolerable
to thousands among people and soldiers. As explained by Miss Loun, back-woodsmen and
crackers were drawn into the army who had no sympathy with slavery and no interest in the
issues of a struggle which they did not understand. The conscript net gathered in even
Northerners and Mexicans, whose tendency to desert was natural enough. Many of the
deserters were mere boys. Poor food and clothing, lack of shoes and overcoats, and
insufficient pay inevitably produced disaffection. Sometimes the pay was fourteen months
behind; often a soldier on leave could not pay the transportation to return to his
command. Unsanitary camp conditions had their debilitating effect. Soldiers kept in
unwholesome inaction were more than commonly subject to homesickness and depression. Often
the alternative was abandonment and neglect of wife and children or departure from the
army - in other words a choice between two kinds of desertion, a dilemma in facing
conflicting loyalties. Men felt that their services were actually more needed at home than
in the army. Not a few Southern soldiers found themselves in the situation of an Alabaman
who deserted the army when his wife wrote him: "We haven't got nothing in the house
to eat but a little bit of meal. . . . I don't want you to stop fighting them Yankees . .but
try and get off and come home and fix us all up some and then you can go back." Some
Arkansas soldiers deserted when informed that Indians were on a scalping tour near their
homes. Indignant at extortioners and profiteers, soldiers would become disgruntled at the
"rich mans war and the poor mans fight." There were occasions when "whole
companies, garrisons, and even regiments decamped at a time." In some cases deserters
banded together, roamed the country, fortified themselves in the mountains, and made raids
upon settlements, stealing cattle and robbing military stores. Some lived in caves. Forces
had to he detached from the Confederate armies to run down such groups, whose retreats
were inaccessible and whose courage in fighting off attack was formidable. Had it not been
for Mosbys Rangers, as Miss Lonn had pointed out, many defenseless residents in Virginias
debatable land between the shifting armies "would have been at the mercy of the
roving hands of deserters, turned bushwhackers, who had been left in the wake of both
armies At critical times in the war the extent of desertion prevented the South from
following up victories or half-victories in the field; it was both the cause and effect of
lowered morale; the amount was "appalling, incredible." Many who withdrew from
the army "had little conception of the gravity of their offense." For such men
desertion bore no stigma; and, in sum, it appears that this factor (which, after all, was
but a reflection of many other factors) "contributed definitely to the Confederate
defeats after 1862 and . . . [to] the catastrophe of 1865." Source: "The Civil War and Reconstruction" by
Randall and Donald